Strickland wants to stand and bang with Du Plessis during their Sydney rematch. Du Plessis doesn’t sound very interested in that.
Sean Strickland is the latest UFC fighter to come out and demand his opponent give up half the techniques used in MMA during their fight.
Grappling has never been the favorite of fans who tune into combat sports to see dudes ‘stand and bang,’ but it feels like we can’t go an event these days without someone suggesting their opponent is a coward if they go for a takedown. For UFC 312 on February 8th it’s Sean Strickland, who got edged out on the scorecards by Dricus Du Plessis the last time they fought .
‘’Listen, Dutchman,” Strickland began in a new video. “I’m going to need you to be a f**king man and I’m gonna need you to stand up, not go to your knees, and we’re gonna need to f**king strike like men. I know you like to wrestle, and you like to f**kng choke people out and do some gay s**t, dude but I’ll make a pact with you. You make a pact with me that we f**kng stand up like f**king men and we settle this s**t like men.’’
Sean Strickland wants to make a stand and bang pact with DDP. No takedowns. No grappling. Just striking.
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Du Plessis didn’t take the bait. A few hours after Strickland’s demand, “Stillknocks” responded on X (formerly Twitter).
“There are no pacts between Lions and men,” Du Plessis wrote.
Du Plessis shot for a takedown 11 times in his first fight against Strickland at UFC 297, completing six of them. He didn’t manage to keep Strickland down for very long, but you could argue the takedowns were enough to slide the incredibly close split decision result Dricus’ way.
He has even less reason not to take things to the ground after the way he beat Israel Adesanya. The two engaged in a dangerous back-and-forth war on the feet that ended quick and easy on the ground after Du Plessis caught Adesanya being sloppy and locked in a rear naked choke.
Sean Strickland hasn’t submitted anyone since 2014. He only has two finishes in the past five years, and they’re both TKOs. At this point his tools are understood, if still difficult to deal with — and they’re all on the feet.
One of the best ways to diffuse his strategic difficulty is to take him down. Why would DDP agree not to do that? If anything the request is only going to result in more takedown attempts from Du Plessis, and more than a little mockery when the two meet in Sydney, Australia next month.